50 Greatest Positive Psychology Quotes

This is perhaps the best collection of the most famous positive psychology quotes in the world. We gave a lot of our sweat and blood to create this post of inspirational quotes, drawing from the esoteric world of psychologists. It is immensely satisfying to see it come to be loved by millions of people.

We tried to include everyone that is Who’s Who of Positive Psychology. We also included “psychological” quotes by some giants who are not positive psychologists or even psychologists, but without those of their words, our world would have been poorer.

As we searched through the publicly available resources, the journey became increasingly fascinating and we rushed to include Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Sigmund Freud, and Carl G. Jung.

We also went a little adventurous and included some great quotes from people who were or are inspirational masters of their trade, but incidentally not from the world of psychology, as Nick Vujicic, Dalai Lama, Paul Romer, and even Kurt Cobain.

We briefly point here that it was in 1998 that positive psychology was formally introduced to the world by Martin Seligman along with Christopher Peterson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Ed Diener. By the way, it was Abraham Maslow who coined the phrase ‘positive psychology’ in 1954.

This post turned out to be a viral post containing the greatest collection of Positive Psychology quotes ever. We feel ever too humbled and grateful.

We published this on 21 Mar, 2015. As of Oct 2016, this post has seen 1,006,505 hits and has been shared virally over social media, with Facebook shares clocking at 3,600, Twitter at 551, LinkedIn at 403, Google+ at 70, and Pinterest at 725. Making it so far the most widely shared ‘Positive Psychology Quotes’ post ever on the internet.

Enjoy these 50 Greatest Quotes on Positive Psychology. And please share it further and farther.

50 Greatest Positive Psychology Quotes

1. Martin Seligman

The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life. – Martin Seligman

2. Ed Diener

Probably the biggest insight… is that happiness is not just a place but also a process. …Happiness is an ongoing process of fresh challenges, and… it takes the right attitudes and activities to continue to be happy. – Ed Diener

If positive psychology teaches us anything, it is that all of us are mixture of strenhths and weaknesses. No one has it all, and no one lacks it all. – Christopher Peterson

5. Robert Biswas-Diener

The good life is best construed as a matrix that includes happiness, occasional sadness, a sense of purpose, playfulness, and psychological flexibility, as well autonomy, mastery, and belonging. – Robert Biswas-Diener

6. Todd B. Kashdan

As for the future, it remains unwritten. Anything can happen, and often we are wrong. The best we can do with the future is prepare and savor the possibilities of what can be done in the present. – Todd Kashdan quote

Life isn’t is about having, it’s about being. You could surround yourself with all that money can buy, and you’d still be as miserable as a human can be. I know people with perfect bodies who don’t have half the happiness I’ve found. …The if I just had X, I would be happy syndrome is a mass delusion. When you look for happiness in mere objects, they are never enough. Look around. Look within. – Nick Vujicic

23. Daniel Gilbert

The truth is, bad things don’t affect us as profoundly as we expect them to. That’s true of good things, too. We adapt very quickly to either. – Daniel Gilbert

24. Shawn Achor

When we encounter an unexpected challenge of threat the only way to save ourselves is to hold on tight to the people around us and not let go. – Shawn Achor

Compassion does not render people tearful idlers, moral weaklings, or passive onlookers but individuals who will take on the pain of others, even when given the chance to skip out on such difficult action or in anonymous conditions. – Dacher Keltner

45. Roy F. Baumeister

What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions. – Roy F. Baumeister

Final Words

We might have missed a whole lot of quotes that should have never been overlooked. We apologize. Please include a comment on which positive psychology quote we have missed. Thank you. And, yes, Todd Kashdan makes double appearance.

When we think back, our greatest challenge was to create this psychology quotes post in a format that people could come back to again and again, and be psyched and motivated each time. So, we created this around a structure of picture quotes. This was as much shareable as memorable.

We are humbled by your love for this post. Please keep your love on and share it further and farther. Thank you forever.